Nina Hundley, IST–CCS
The campus's business resumption goal is to resume teaching and research within 30 days after any major disaster (see the Office of Business Resumption website, http://obr.berkeley.edu). As part of this effort, for the past two years, CCS has conducted a hotsite test to ensure that essential parts of the Berkeley computing environment can be reestablished quickly at a remote site after a disaster.
In June 2005, the Payroll Recovery Team performed the second annual hotsite test. The goal was to reproduce the Berkeley computing environment at the IBM hotsite and produce a payroll from backup files. This needed to be accomplished within the 48 hours allocated for the hotsite test.
It was discovered during the first hotsite test in 2004 that the database and system backups were not in sync and that a necessary tape had not been sent to the hotsite. So even though the Berkeley environment was created, the Payroll application and functional groups were unable to test their recovery procedures.
The objective of the 2005 hotsite test was to produce synchronized backups. This was accomplished by scheduling two consecutive Sundays to shut off all activity to the mainframe to perform backups. This took approximately two hours and five tapes each weekend. This was down from 600 tapes in 2004 due to modern tape technology installed in the new campus data center.
Another objective was to recover the computing environment quickly and turn the system over to the Payroll application and functional groups as soon as possible to provide them ample time to test their recovery procedures and produce the payroll.
Both of these goals were accomplished. After two years of planning and hard work, the UC Berkeley payroll was run successfully at the hotsite.
Currently, Payroll is the only application that is "hotsite ready". Accounts Receivable and the Office of the Registrar are in the process of preparing recovery procedures for their applications for the 2006 hotsite test.
CCS is also pursuing partnerships within the UC system on peering agreements to allow one campus to be another's hotsite. This is an alternative to spending money each year on a commercial hotsite which might not be available to us during a regional catastrophic event. Campuses would invest in each other's infrastructure which could then be used in the interests of each campus.
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